Ubuntu: Make ALSA default instead of PulseAudio

PulseAudio has still problems with some applications and it always adds a little latency and that's the reason, why so many people still prefer ALSA. This howto shows you, how to remove PulseAudio, add alsa-mixer applet to the panel and associate hotkeys for volume change.

2. Install alsa-mixer (volume) applet

PulseAudio removes volume applet, so you need new volume applet. For getting it to work, you need to intall the following packages: python, python-notify, python-gtk2, python-alsaaudio and xfce4-mixer or gnome-alsamixer (i preffer xfce4-mixer).

UPDATE

Instead of removing pulseaudio you can also stop if from auto-restarting and simply killing it of with an auto-starter each time you login.

echo autospawn = no|tee -a ~/.pulse/client.conf && killall pulseaudio

After that, simply put killall plulseaudio into your autostart. You still need the alsa-mixer stuff and totem/audio-preview are also broken. but it’s quite useful for when you want to temporarily switch to alsa or any other sound system.